Why Would a Church Spend $40,000 on Facebook Advertising?

I will never forget that one Sunday. We were launching a new message series called “Healing.” It was all about how Jesus’ Beatitudes are the ultimate pathway for recovery. We spent about $200 sponsoring a video advertising the series during the week leading up to the first Sunday.

The results? We had 74 first-time guests, and, literally, all of them indicated on their communication cards that Facebook was how they’d heard about us.

Two young ladies who had come because of the ad told me after the service that they were heading out to a party the night before, and our ad caught their eye. They decided to attend our services that morning, and both of them prayed to receive Christ.

That was $40,000 well spent. Let me clarify a few details about that amount . . .

It was actually Facebook AND Instagram.

It was over five years, not all at once.

It was, literally, our entire advertising budget for five years.

It has worked! Very well, in fact.

But that’s not all. Theirs isn’t the only story. We now see about 400 to 450 people gathering each week, and a majority of them have actually come as a result of seeing our ads on Facebook or seeing something that a friend has shared on Facebook that pointed back to us.

Repeatedly, we get to meet people who are disillusioned with church, who haven’t been and aren’t sure they’d be welcome, but who are reassured by our ads, especially the videos, in which we make it clear that everybody belongs at Grace Hills.

Many of the people who have come as a result of seeing those ads have:

received Jesus

been baptized

started growing in their faith

gotten involved in serving others

gone on a mission trip

given financially to sponsor children in Belize

welcomed others at the front door

See what I mean?

$40,000. Well spent.

Maybe this thought already has crossed your mind: But that money could have been spent on better things . . .

Perhaps. But if we’d spent that $40,000 on something “better” than reaching spiritually lost people, we wouldn’t have a church of hundreds of people giving their time, talent, and treasure to the amazing causes that we support.

That $40,000, broken down over five years, is an average of $8,000 per year, which means we’re spending about $650 to $750 per month on advertising our church on Facebook. That’s all we ever spend on promotion. No newspaper ads. No Yellow Pages ads. (Who uses those anymore anyway?) And dozens of people have heard about and followed Jesus as a result.

Why Facebook Ads Are So Valuable

If you think it’s okay to spend hundreds of dollars on an ad in the Yellow Pages (don’t even get me started on how enormously wasteful that really is) but not dozens of dollars on a Facebook ad, you definitely must readRewired and get a handle on just how amazing our current social networking cultural current is.

Here’s why I love Facebook and Instagram ads: They’re personal.

It isn’t just:

Here’s a church.

It’s:

Here’s MY church.

Catch the difference?

With traditional print advertising, churches get to state their existence in hopes someone who doesn’t attend church (because none of us wants to simply recruit from among the already-churched crowd, right?) sees their ad, thinks about why they should check out a church, and gets up the nerve to attend.

They don’t know if they have any relationships there.

They don’t know if it’s relevant or not.

But we expect them to just show up. Because some of us grew up thinking, that’s just what people do — they go to church.

With a Facebook ad, a person sees at least three things:

This church exists.

My friend goes there, or at least likes and trusts them.

They’re offering something I need — it’s relevant.

So, one more time . . .

That was $40,000. Well spent.

People will be in Heaven because we chose to put our church out there in an engaging and relational way. My only regrets? Not doing it better. Not doing it sooner. Not doing it enough. If you have no idea where to start, check out this course on Facebook marketing or the resources at ThatChurch.cc.

Brandon Cox

Brandon has been a pastor since he was nineteen and has served churches, large and small, including serving as a Pastor at Saddleback Church. Currently, he is planting a purpose driven church in northwest Arkansas. He also serves as Editor of Pastors.com and Rick Warren's Pastors' Toolbox, authors a blog for church leaders and recently launched a new website providing free ministry tools to church leaders.

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